Great Contemporaries

Montgomery took command of the 8th Army at a time when Britain and Churchill desperately needed a victory. It was left to him to deliver it.

London has no statue of Claude Auchinleck, the man who stopped Rommel and the last commander of the Indian Army. Perhaps there should be one.

Auchinleck met seemingly impossible challenges in running up a noble record in North Africa and India during the Second World War.

A Canadian hero dear to Churchill, Stephenson deserved better than he received at the hands of biographers and a disbelieving public.

Churchill believed any obstacle could be surmounted, while Wavell prepared for the worst. Both traits had served Britain well.

Confronted with the seeming impossible in the Middle East, Wavell acquitted himself well and was promoted as often as he was sacked.

Lifetime friend and trusted collaborator, Louis Spears knew France and the French as few Britons, serving faithfully in peace and war.

Lady Violet: “He had no doubts about his star. He felt that he had been preserved through many perils in order to fulfil its purpose.”

Violet Asquith, 1906: “I found myself sitting next to this young man who seemed to me quite different from any other young man I had ever met…”

“Politics for Churchill, if he is ever to fulfill his promise, must have everything to do with the salvation of mankind.” —Harold Begbie

Sinclair aging: “He did so much and worried so greatly on account of the boys who lost their lives…no wonder that he is now a war casualty.”

Hopkins to Churchill, 1942: “‘Where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God’…Even to the end.”